Bike movers find ways to haul it all

Pedal power and volunteer cyclists replace moving trucks

By Nevill Eschen

The Portland Tribune, Aug 3, 2006, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Christopher Onstott / The Portland Tribune

Move by Bike volunteer Lisa Argersinger tows a load to Portland Central America Solidarity Committee’s new office in North Portland.

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A convoy of bicycles pulling heavily loaded trailers rolls through Portland with spirited riders cheerily sounding their bells.

The bike trailers’ cargo is the stuff you’d see on somebody’s moving day — large packing boxes, framed posters and the odd appliance strapped to the top.

It is somebody’s moving day, somebody who’s chosen to move by bike. It’s another way bike enthusiasts have found to free themselves from the internal combustion engine.

“It’s attractive to people who have abandoned car culture,” said Wes Kempfer, who’s taken part in half a dozen bike moves, including his own.

“I’ve always wanted to be part of a caravan,” Steve Rousseau explained on a recent Saturday morning when he showed up with a bike trailer to help a nonprofit group, the Portland Central America Solidarity Committee, move from East Burnside Street to North Portland.

The new office on North Ivy Street is about a half-mile from the Mississippi Avenue Cooperative where he lives. “It’s to be in solidarity, it’s good to form those connections,” Rousseau added.

Fellow cooperative resident Neil Robinson brought the large bike trailer he uses to deliver groceries for People’s Food Co-op.

One of the move’s co-organizers, PCASC volunteer Lisa Argersinger, says it made sense for an organization with grass-roots connections to the developing world, where a car is a luxury, to move by bike.

“Most people live without cars. I really see bicycles as an expression of freedom — freedom from war and the constraints of a car,” Argersinger said.

Wanted: strong legs

Fliers, Web site bulletins and word of mouth are common means of getting the word out to volunteers, but an organized effort has grown out of the interest in bike moves.

Move by Bike organizes via a list serve, which can round up as many as two dozen pedaling helpers to move the belongings of a person or business.

“We make it a parade,” said Brian Scrivner, who helps with a bicycling advocacy and organizing group, Shift, and serves, fittingly, as a spokesman for Move by Bike. “We cork traffic,” which means the group sticks together, even if stoplights say otherwise, “we stay close together … from the start to the destination.”

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